Tamil film industry glorifies the stalking of women, activists say

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The group were detained after festival organisers complained to police that some moviegoers had refused to stand for the anthem before a film screening on Monday, an investigator with the Kerala police, Anil Kumar, told the Guardian.

They were released on bail but Kerala police have started an investigation into whether they breached the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act of 1971. Intentionally breaching the act is punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison.

India’s supreme court announced last month that cinemas across the country had to start film screenings by playing the anthem, during which time doors should be locked and moviegoers should stand.

The court said the order was needed so that citizens would “feel that they live in a nation”, and that too much disrespect of national symbols had been indulged in the name of “individually perceived notions of freedom”.

The decision played into concerns held by some Indians that the country’s traditionally pluralist character was being undermined by a coarser nationalism that leaves less room for minority rights or dissent.

About 100 people took part in protests outside cinema venues in Kerala on Tuesday, holding signs that read: “Playing the national anthem in theatre is like selling it for free in a supermarket. Please don’t degrade my national anthem.”

The court rejected their plea but amended its earlier order to clarify that disabled people did not need to stand, only to “show such conduct which is commensurate with respect for the national anthem”. The doors of cinemas should be closed during the rendition, but not bolted shut, it added.

A brawl broke out on Sunday in a cinema in Chennai, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state, after one group of moviegoers objected to another taking selfies and talking while the anthem was played.

Six people from the group who remained seated were charged for breaching the new anthem law, Chennai police said.

The anthem, Jana Gana Mana, was first ordered to be played in Indian cinemas in the early 1960s after India’s war with China, but enforcement was lacklustre, and the practice was eventually phased out in all but two states.